


[redacted]

by magnificent



Series: The Interdimensional Timeline Agency [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Dimension Travel, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Government Agencies, Multiverse, Science Fiction, Time Agency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-05 22:37:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14628486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificent/pseuds/magnificent
Summary: "In less than three hours after waking up, Chelsea Midrow spills hot coffee all over her favorite blouse, slips on a patch of ice, gets fired from her dead-end job, and falls into a wormhole."





	1. Mr. Sandman

**Author's Note:**

> A MASSIVE thank you to both JayceCarter and vidoxi, who beta read the first three chapters and helped correct a bunch of junk.

In less than three hours after waking up, Chelsea Midrow spills hot coffee all over her favorite blouse, slips on a patch of ice, gets fired from her dead-end job, and falls into a wormhole.

To be fair, the latter wasn't the worst part; getting fired was an awkward, drawn-out process, and for some inconceivable reason her employers had chosen to do it at the beginning of the day, so she was crying messily and packing up her desk while her former co-workers arrived in time to turn on their PCs and smartphones and stare worriedly at her over the cubicle walls.

Falling through the wormhole is much different. There is very little warning, and it happens quickly. No time to wonder about her future, no time to ask herself if she'll be able to afford rent for the next month. No insecurities about her performance or the horoscope that predicted 'great changes in her life' or  _ anything.  _ There is nothing to think about at all.

First there is a certain sponginess of the air around her, the strangest feeling of gelatinous material pressing around her, and, at last, the give of spacetime under her feet as the weakest point in the universe breaks.

She falls, and the hole closes above her.

There should not be anything to catch her, but there is.

 

* * *

 

For the second time in three hours, Chelsea lands flat on her ass. A quick curse flies out of her mouth, unbidden, and it turns into a gasp as she looks around.  _ Wasn't I just on the street, walking from my car to my apartment?  _ There's nothing threatening around her; in fact, she's entirely alone in what looks like a small meeting room; but the sudden change of scenery is both unsettling and terrifying.

_ Did I have some sort of mental breakdown?  _ She's heard of that happening before. She'd taken Intro to Psychology in college, for one of her general science credits. A fugue state, where people undergo severe stress and subconsciously invent a new persona and then they wake up somewhere else, not knowing where they'd gone or what had happened.

But Chelsea's still wearing her beige pencil skirt, her second-favorite blouse, and her two-inch heels don't look any more scuffed than they did after she slipped on the ice earlier. If she  _ has  _ gone into a fugue state, it hasn't lasted longer than a couple of hours or so.

Because there has to be a rational explanation for this, right? She can't have just... just...  _ poofed,  _ and fallen into a goddamn office complex with second-hand furniture.

She giggles nervously at the thought.  _ Out of one job, and right into the next! Literally! _

Carefully, making sure that her twisted ankle can support her weight, Chelsea wobbles to her feet and takes in her surroundings. A slightly-scuffed conference table, padded chairs lining either end. The windows have drawn blinds, and Chelsea, curious to see what part of the city she's in, pulls them open.

A rainforest greets her. Chelsea blinks at the sudden image of creeping vines and tropical birds;  _ a sticker.  _ Huh. This office building probably faces another one, then.

Chelsea digs her fingernail into the edge of the sticker, careful not to tear it, and peels away the edge.

At first she doesn't understand what she's seeing; then she gasps and pulls off the rest of the sticker in disbelief. Searches for a latch on the window, to reach out, to feel, but there's no ledge or fastener to open it.

Through the window is an endless expanse of black. So dark and complete that Chelsea can't recall ever seeing anything more absolute. It's like liquid midnight, swimming just an inch away.

She might think that it was soil, a poorly-placed window on the ground floor of the building, but there's no detail to make out, nothing implying edges or shapes in the infinite ocean of ink.

Chelsea shudders, slaps the sticker back in place, and throws open the door; no one's in sight. So what if she shouldn't be in here? What does that matter? She'd love a confrontation now, an executive to ask her what she thinks she's doing here, an irate secretary to pitch her out. Anything  _ normal.  _ Something to distract her from her horror at the sight of that unfathomable dark.

It takes her a few minutes to find someone; cautiously, she walks down the hall, turns; there are a few offices with open doors, and as she glances in, there are people at typing at their computers, taking notes, on phone calls. She lets out a breath of air, relieved; she decides that she must have been mistaken before. She couldn't have just fallen into the office building without any cause; she couldn't have seen a field of nothingness outside the window; see, this is just a regular office. Look at those potted plants. Look at the trash cans filled with papers and paper coffee cups. Everything is normal. Everything is fine.

When she sees a man walking towards her, she gives him a tentative smile and a laugh.  _ Play stupid. No one can fault a ditzy girl in a pencil skirt, right? _

“Hi there, I think I'm... kind of lost. Can you show me where the exit is, please?” Chelsea giggles again.

The man's face wrinkles, and then he says, “Oh, are you new here? Which area are you trying to get to?”

“Uhm... no, I'm trying to get back outside. Sorry, I... wandered in here. I don't actually work here.”

His face clears of confusion.  _ “Oh.  _ You're a new arrival, then. Well, follow me, I'll take you to Briefing.”

“Briefing?” Chelsea echoes. “No... no, I just want to leave.”

“Briefing first,” he says, and Chelsea has no choice but to go with him. Down the hall, into an elevator—the man presses the button for the two-hundredth floor, and Chelsea's eyes widen. The elevator has so many floors, apparently, that the buttons have to be very tiny to fit onto the panel. The highest floor seems to be three hundred fifty.  _ Where the hell am I?  _ There aren't  _ any  _ buildings that she knows of that have this many floors. Not in Beijing or Hong Kong or wherever the hell that one really tall one is.

The air thickens, and with a suddenness that lurches in her gut, the elevator shoots off. There's about five seconds of intense nausea before the air thins again, and the elevator dings.

“You get used to it,” the man says, noticing her queasiness. “Come on, through here.”

Floor two hundred, or  _ Briefing,  _ looks sort of like a hospital lobby. A few utilitarian chairs, several receptionists, high ceilings. The man directs her to one of the receptionists, and the woman stands up with a smile. “New arrival?”

“Mm,” the man says, and pulls out Chelsea's chair for her.

“Thank you,” she says automatically. She still has no idea what she's doing here. “Uhm, what about—”

“You'll be fine,” the man reassures her. “Name's Brian Tesker. Maybe I'll see you around.”

“Uhm, yeah,” she manages.  _ Wait, what? _

Before she can say anything, though, the woman is pulling out a clipboard and sliding it across the countertop. “Fill this out, if you please?”

The form looks like any other that she's ever seen in a doctor's office, asking after her name, address, social security number, marriage status, children...

“I don't see why I have to do this,” Chelsea says, although she hasn't stopped moving her pen. Right now she's focusing on filling out her medical history. “I just wanted to leave.”

“We'll discuss that later,” the woman says. She takes the clipboard back after Chelsea signs, and then with a suddenness that she doesn't expect, the receptionist snaps a little black box over her index finger. Chelsea yelps at the sudden prick, and whips back her hand after it's freed.

“Blood sample,” the woman says, and fits the box into a machine by her side. “Quick but necessary, of course. While that's processing, I'll introduce you to ART.”

“ART?”

Chelsea is led into a massive lobby, with high, vaulted ceilings, Grecian pillars, and a small platform at the very front of the room.

“Hello, ART,” the receptionist says, addressing the empty room. “This is,” she rechecks the clipboard. “.. Chelsea Midrow.”

Chelsea is very mildly affronted, that she'd taken her blood,  _ without her permission,  _ and didn't even remember her name. 

The room answers, “Hello, Vivi, hello, Chelsea.”

Chelsea would never admit to flinching, but... she definitely did, when the room spoke. The voice was deep and calm, reverberating around them.

“Who... what...”

“My name is Automatic Reconnaissance and Triage. Otherwise known as ART. You may stop looking for someone speaking; you won't find one. I am an AI.”

“As in artificial intelligence,” the receptionist, Vivi, confirms, noticing Chelsea's panicked look. “It's okay, he's a good one. ART, you've processed her blood test and info?”

“Of course. I'll send the results to your email.”

“Thanks, hon,” Vivi says. The receptionist leaves the room, her heels clacking off the tiled floor. Chelsea watches her leave, numbly. 

“Look,” she says, feeling foolish (she  _ is  _ speaking to an empty room, after all), “is this Briefing? I just want to leave. I don't know how I got here, I just...”

She trails off with a sigh, shaking her head.

“Fell?” ART supplies.

Chelsea looks up.

“You fell into this building,” ART says. “It's alright. That's how nearly everyone gets here. Chelsea Midrow, you are no longer in your reality.”

“What... what the hell is that supposed to mean?” She's shaking her head again, harder, not wanting to listen to this... lunacy.

“Currently,” ART continues relentlessly, “you are in an inbetween space. A dimension void of anything—no atoms or air or life. A vast expanse of nothing.”

_ The windows,  _ she thinks.

“The building that we are in... it's more of a stationary space shuttle, I suppose. This building belongs to the Interdimensional Timeline Agency. ITA.” The platform at the front of the room is suddenly filled with the floating image of a massive, oblong vessel. “ITA was formed roughly three hundred years ago, by Robert Gresham, who discovered the methods of interdimensional travel based on the work of Hugh Everett and Erwin Schrodinger.”

“Like... Schrodinger's cat?” Chelsea asks.

“Ah, good! So at least one of them existed in your timeline.  _ Fascinating.  _ Yes, like Schrodinger's cat. The theory went like this: there was a cat in the box, and a vial of poison. Either the poison would be released and kill the cat, or it would not. With the box covering the field of vision of all observers, no one would know whether or not the cat was alive or dead.” ART's tone is engaged and eager, as if he's excited to be teaching her. Chelsea reflects that, even if nothing else today is going well, at least he's easy to listen to.

“So, to all observers, the cat was simultaneously dead and alive. Follow me so far?”

“Yes, I... I think so.”

“Everett's work states that the cat is only either dead or alive,  _ but  _ it exists in those states in different timelines. Once any decision is made, the timeline branches off. Which means that there are an infinite number of timelines! Each one with different variations of you and me, and everyone else in this building. We call this the multiverse.” ART pauses. “This realm, however, is the inbetween. It is a constant. It is the only realm with no variation, because there was nothing here to begin with. Making it the best place to put ITA.

“ITA, our organization, serves to protect the multiverse from getting tangled within itself. To keep the timelines separated. And, in some cases, we work to change the outcomes of timelines. To ensure the safety of the people within them.”

“And me?” Chelsea asks. “How do I fit into all of this?”

“You, Chelsea Midrow? We'd like you to join us.”

 


	2. Dream a Little Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is self-care

“Hey, Brian,” Chelsea asks, sipping at her rapidly-cooling coffee. “You think there's a timeline where everyone on Earth is a bug-person?”

“I'll ask ART,” comes the reply over her cubicle wall. She hears keys clicking and waits.

Chelsea and Brian Tesker, the man she'd first met at ITA, play this game pretty frequently. Something to pass the time. One of them suggests a particularly strange or specific (or both) parameters for a reality, and they message ART on their helpdesk chat app. It's a game that quickly becomes boring, with each answer either being a yes or a no, so they try to limit themselves to one question each per day.

It's been two years since Chelsea fell, and she honestly hasn't been happier. She has an incredible job at ITA, even if it can be boring; nearly all of her time is spent on the computer, monitoring threat levels. Despite ART's brilliance, the humans in charge of the organization feel the need to constrict his access and give humans the final say on nearly everything. Chelsea thinks it's kinda dumb, but more than a few of her coworkers have come from realities wiped out by AI, so she doesn't speak up about it much. Still, she knows that if ART were given permission to assess threat levels himself, instead of giving them  _ suggestions,  _ they'd be a lot more efficient.

“Okay, he replied,” Brian announces. “He says...  _ yes,  _ that there is, but it's a series of timelines where aliens came to Earth, slaughtered every human, started civil war, and then devolved into animals again. So, the threat level is basically null on each world.”

“Gross,” Chelsea says.

“Mm. Hah,” he says, “ _ is this a Chelsea question?” _

She grins, opens her helpdesk app, and types.

_Chelsea:_ _You know me too well._

The reply is instantaneous.

_ ART: I do. And please stop using the chat box for idle conversation, that's not what this is for. _

_ Chelsea: Sorry. _

_ ART: You aren't. But apology accepted. _

And then another message:  _ ART has closed the chat. _

“I think he's getting annoyed with us,” she giggles, and Brian laughs too.

“Isn't he always? God I love that guy.”

ART has been very patient with them, all things considered, and she wonders if that's more or less easy, considering he's an AI. Being what he is, he hates having his time wasted, but Chelsea also wonders if it's easier because of the fact that his emotions (if you're of the sort that thinks that AI can even  _ have  _ emotions) process differently.

But their questions do have a purpose. After asking, ART sends them the series of files of information that he's compiled of each timeline; some have more than others. With the physics of spacetime, some spans of timelines can barely be reached with ART's sensors; and then some can only be observed and not visited. Which is great, because otherwise the multiverse would be one big fucking mess. The fact that timelines are orderly enough to be cataloged by a computer cuts down on the paradoxes, too.

“Ask ART if there are timelines where every woman is at least a double D.”

Chelsea giggles again as she types in the question.

_ ART: Please tell Brian that if he is going to ask questions, that they should at least be original. _

A pause.

_ ART: Do you know how often I get asked this? _

_ Chelsea: More than once a week? _

_ ART: More like once a  _ day.  _ I get questions from agents who are hoping to come up with some sort of threat level excuse so that they can go visit. _

_ Chelsea: So, it's a thing? _

She can almost hear his irritation.

_ ART: Yes, Chelsea, it is a 'thing'. There are hundreds of worlds. Do you still want these files? There are several million of them, and I believe that they have all been thoroughly examined. _

_ Chelsea: No thanks. _

_ ART has closed the chat. _

“Well?”

“Apparently several hundred other agents have the topic under control,” Chelsea says.

“Ahh, damn! I knew I should have asked sooner.” Brian pauses. “Oh, uh. Hello, sir.”

Chelsea turns her head, not having heard anyone come up behind her, and catch sight of Dallas Granite, the administrator in charge of D-Wing, standing several feet away.

As is customary upon seeing her boss, Chelsea blushes dark red, licks her lips, and averts her eyes. Dallas more than likely notices this, but says nothing about her reaction. He's seen this exact response from her every time they've spoken, or even glanced at each other. Chelsea wonders if he considers it to be tiresome or flattering.

“Agent Midrow,” Dallas says, and several other employees pause in their tasks to watch or listen. “You've been with us for two years, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Chelsea whispers, uncertain of what's about to happen, but hopeful.

“And you've never been sent out into the field.”

“No, sir!”

_ Now  _ she knows what's coming. Her heart rate picks up in excitement.

“We have a Code Orange on thirty different timelines. ART submitted your name under possible candidates a few months ago for any upcoming missions. Fortunately, this should be an easy one. You've done well in the range, your combat skills have been evaluated by our trainers, and I think you're more than prepared for your first field assignment. Are you ready to do your part to protect ITA from discovery by potentially deadly forces?”

“Yes, sir!”

 

* * *

 

Code Orange: the increasingly-likely possibility that a timeline will discover the ability to cross timelines.

Meaning, a timeline is becoming a risk to Interdimensional Timeline Agency.

ITA's always been a group shrouded in mystery, and they prefer to keep it that way. Being found out by any larger group as a whole, one with like-minded individuals who might want to go against ITA's policy of maintaining interdimensional peace—is something that they work very hard to keep from happening. In the many years since ITA's founding, there has never been an interdimensional war.

Chelsea hopes she isn't the first to mess it up. She loves her job, loves that she works as what's essentially a multiverse police officer. It's badass, it pays amazingly well,  _ and  _ she gets access to all the arts and media and TV shows that all the other 'verses have.

Also, ITA has Dallas Granite.

Chelsea tries to ignore the latter fact as she sits in the chair across from her boss's desk. They're alone... in his office... with the door closed...

Dallas sighs and looks down at his file. “I understand you come from a window world.”

Chelsea nods; two years ago, she wouldn't have understood what he means, but now she knows that he's referring to her culture as being filled with media, as compared to the other worlds. The more media there is, the more likely it is that she'll meet someone who's very similar to some of the actors or characters in her world.

Such as Dallas Granite.

He's... not  _ exactly  _ like the superhero from the comics in her world, but he's close enough, and he bears a striking similarity to the latest actor who portrayed him. (Which makes it even better.) He was one of her favorite characters out of all media, whether in books, movies,  _ or  _ video games, which is saying something.

She was obsessive enough that she's had a framed poster of him hanging in her bedroom. Enough that she'd bought his movie soundtracks. Enough that she'd written  _ fanfiction  _ about him.

Chelsea blushes again. “Yes, sir.”

Just like the hero in the comics, Commander Dallas Granite was a war hero on his own world. Every single battle he fought in the comics, he fought in real life. Even the bit in Volume 1 where he lost his newly-wed wife to the Neo-Nazi Satanists during the ritual they used to summon his demonic nemesis, Killjoy. Except, there was no demon, and Dallas Granite never gained any superpowers.

But still. Close enough.

“I'm sure I don't have to recite to you our policy on window worlders going on missions,” Dallas says, raising an eyebrow.

_ No.  _ No, he doesn't. Because Chelsea quickly found out that with so many timelines, it's almost impossible for someone to be exactly the same as they're portrayed in comic books or movies. For instance, she was shocked to find Dallas eating cheesecake last year on his birthday, even though she  _ knows  _ that the superhero Dallas refuses to eat anything sweet. Or that Dallas has a daughter, back on his own world, even though the superhero's wife was heavily pregnant when sacrificed, and never had a chance to give birth.

Window worlders, like her, aren't  _ ever  _ supposed to go on missions to timelines with anything that they know about. Too many lives have been lost because of people making simple mistakes: thinking that one plant isn't poisonous, mistaking the loyalties of a childhood hero; trusting in the wrong people, blinded by their own awe and joy of being in the land of their dreams.

“I realize that this particular mission,” Dallas says, tapping the folder, “contains some material that was windowed to your dimension. I, uh, realize that you were into superheros on your world, but, you were never into  _ vidya games,  _ were you?”

Chelsea pauses, and tries to blank out memories of her enormous gaming library on her two-thousand dollar PC at home.

“Nope,” she lies innocently.

She knows. She  _ knows  _ she shouldn't be doing this. She'll get fired if anyone finds out, if this mission really does have something to do with any of the games she's played. Chelsea muses that she's in luck, because she doesn't look like a typical gamer— _ whatever that might be— _ with her manicured nails, makeup, and sweet smile.

Oh god, but if this mission has to do with one of her favorites... she doesn't know how she's going to be able to resist.

_ Please be a zombie game,  _ she prays silently.  _ Or something from the Prototype series. Or STALKER. Or Portal—because god while I loved that game, I don't want to die that badly. Please be something I can turn down. _

Pursing his lips in a decidedly un-Dallas Granite-y expression, her boss slides the file across to her.

The first pages inside are glossy photographs, and Chelsea wonders how these were obtained. She sees clinical white lab interiors, and wrinkles her brow in confusion.  _ Doesn't look similar to anything I've played. Unless this  _ is  _ Portal?  _ It wouldn't be a surprise if the Portalverse got put on Code Orange. The technology there is way too serious to not pose a problem at some point.

She flips the photo over, and gets more of the same. Lab, lab, lab, lab... a grinning young woman is featured next, Caucasian, brown-haired, middle-aged. Dressed in a leather jacket and resting a shotgun on her shoulder.

The next page isn't a photograph, but a dossier on the woman.

_ Name: Nora Brooks _

_ Sex: F _

_ DOB: August 21, 2052 _

_ Status: Deceased _

Chelsea skims over the rest of the data, and then catches her breath.

_ Married: Nate Brooks, 2075 _

_ Survived by: Shaun Brooks, DOB July 13, 2077 _

_ Importance: POI _

What follows is a list of accomplishments:  _ general, mother of current POI,  _ etc.

Nora. Nate. Shaun.

_ Oh fuck, it can't be...  _ she flips through the rest of the pages until she lands on a picture of a Glowing One, made all the more grotesque because it was staring at her from a photograph, and not from a computer screen. It was  _ real.  _ Fucking  _ real! _

_ Does that mean... Piper? Danse? Curie? Hancock? Valentine?  _ All of her favorite characters flash through her brain. They could be  _ real.  _ They could be  _ alive! _

Chelsea takes a moment to compose herself. Pretends that she was staring out of horror, and not anything else.

“That's pretty awful. Zombies?”

“In essence, yes,” Dallas says. “They're called ghouls in twenty-seven of the thirty Code Orange 'verses. Two of 'em, they're called shufflers. Last one just calls 'em walkers. Like zombies, they're mindless and ravenous. If you get within range of one, it  _ will  _ attack you.”

“Are their bites infectious?”  _ That  _ would be shitty. With all the variation, Chelsea guesses it wouldn't be out of the question.

“Not in these timelines,” Dallas says grimly.

“...Right.”

“Give me the low-down, then.”

Dallas doesn't waste any time. “The Institute. A scientific organization in a D-class series whose focus is to renew the world following a devastating nuclear world war between the USA and China. The problem is their technology. It's too advanced, too soon. The first few images are from their facilities during preliminary forays during the first week this set of timelines went Code Orange. As we speak, it continues to branch. We need to get this under control, stat.”

Chelsea nods slowly. Now that he's explained, it makes sense. The Institute has technology rivaling the ITA's, which, obviously, is  _ not good.  _ They've invented teleportation as well as synths, and it would be no stretch for them to realize that a few tweaks of their teleporters can bring them into other 'verses.

And with a man like Father in control...  _ what could a bastard like that do to the agency?  _ Would he send in Coursers? Would he try to subvert the power system? Infect ART with a virus, or maybe try to steal his source code to make synths even more powerful? Honestly, she thinks that the latter would probably be the most difficult, which is good. ART is the most dangerous thing/person/tech in the entire building, so it's fortunate that he's also the most difficult to compromise.

“Where do the zombies factor in?” she asks, trying her best to act like she has zero grasp over the situation.

“They don't,” Dallas says. “They're simply one of the multitude of threats in this 'verse. The people of the timeline have fragile DNA that mutates easily. There's almost no one left alive who has purely human genetics. The zombies are just a single example of how bad the shit is there. So you're gonna have to be careful. Remember your training. Be smart.”

“And the Institute? What do you want me to do with them?”

Dallas Granite runs a hand over his face, and suddenly Chelsea sees the heavy lines on his brow.  _ He's exhausted,  _ she realizes.

“Destroy them,” he says. “Do you hear me, dammit? They could discover us any day now. Nora Brooks, our main POI, was the linchpin to our survival across nearly all of the timelines that we're dealing with. She was working with the Brotherhood and the Minutemen to try to destroy the Institute herself when she was killed in action. She has allies who were committed to that same goal. Your job, Agent Midrow, is to get in there and finish what she set into motion. Blow up the Institute and make sure every goddamn scientist and synth in league with those fools are dead.”

A pause. “And if either the Brotherhood or the Minutemen discover the means for teleportation as well, you need to kill them too. We can't risk having those schematics survive.”

“Yessir,” Chelsea says, sucking in a deep breath.  _ Killing that many people?  _ It's what she's been trained to do for the past two years, but still. She hasn't  _ really  _ been prepared for that. “But... that's a big responsibility, sir. I'm flattered that you think I'm ready for something like this, but...”

“Truth is, Agent Midrow,” Dallas says, “is that we haven't been having much luck in D-Wing lately. There are other Orange Alerts. Worse ones. Yesterday we lost over three hundred agents to a different series.”

_ Fuck.  _ There's a chance that she  _ knew  _ some of those people.

Her hands tighten. “I understand, sir.”

“Agent Tesker will be assigned to the timeline beside yours. If there's any trouble, he'll be close enough to provide support.”

_ Small mercies.  _ Brian's been an agent for far longer than her, as young as he is, and it's a relief that her best friend and favorite coworker is going to be close by. But still, she worries for him, especially if that many agents are dead already. It's not because of the Fallout series of 'verses, but it's a pretty damn grim reminder of how quickly things can go badly.

 

* * *

 

Thirty-six hours later, Chelsea's getting prepped for transport; she's gotten six different immunizations and is dressed in military cargo pants and a torn collared shirt. A heavy police vest goes overtop, standard-issue ITA armor for combat in most timelines. It's been worn down and the letters read POLICE rather than ITA, but it's comforting in its familiarity. Chelsea's worn these vests every day in boot camp as well as during combat and weapons training. She's used to the weight.

“Pull your sleeve back,” the staff nurse says, and holds out a Pip-Boy—Chelsea tries to keep her face blank upon seeing, but it's hard. “This is called a Pip-Boy. It's an unusual sight in the 'verse you're going to, but not anything unheard of.”

Chelsea nods, as if this is all new to her. She remembers that the Pip-Boys were sometimes commented upon by NPCs when she played. She wonders if the people in this 'verse look down upon Vault-dwellers just like in the game.

The nurse goes on to explain the different functions, and they're all slightly different than what she remembers in the game. The status window shows her heart rate, oxygen level, cholesterol, blood pressure; everything that a doctor would check for during a check up. There's a tab for the internal Geiger counter, as well as another screen to show if she has any sicknesses.

It's missing a lot of stuff, too, though. No inventory page, although there is a map and a pixelated notebook. There's even a stylus, something that Chelsea's never heard of being used with a Pip-Boy, where she can take notes in long-hand or draw if she gets bored. When she asks how much memory and storage it has, the nurse tells her that there's “enough that she won't run out”. Chelsea wonders what her idea of a lot of space is, because she's run out of storage on her phone more times than she can count.

However, there's one important difference between this Pip-Boy and the others.

“If you need any extra resources, back-up, or intel, this'll allow you to reach ART. Hold down the power button for ten seconds, and it'll bring up the chat screen. You can do voice chat, too, if necessary. Pressing it once will turn off the screen, and when you turn it back on, it'll be back to normal.” The nurse pauses. “Assistant Director Granite would like me to remind you that this is for your eyes only. If anyone finds that you're communicating with an AI, let alone one from another timeline...”

She doesn't need to remind Chelsea. She's heard all the horror stories. When an agent fucks up, it takes a whole lot of red tape and body bags before the timeline gets back under control. Lots of people die, and they aren't always just witnesses. A lot of times, it's agents getting sacrificed for interdimensional peace.

With the fact that she's already lied about not having knowledge of the Fallout 'verses, if she messes this up, she's likely to be the first fatality. And if she isn't, well... Chelsea doesn't doubt that Dallas Granite would make her the last. Untrustworthy agents just aren't worth the risk, not to an organization as powerful as ITA.

_ Last chance,  _ she thinks, as the nurse explains the biometric seal.  _ It'd be embarrassing, and I'd get demoted... and I definitely wouldn't ever be let near a 'verse that had touched my own... but at least I wouldn't be breaking the code. _

_ At least I wouldn't be risking my life.  _ Chelsea pauses, and a cold sweat sweeps over her.  _ This is all happening too fast. How many times have I died in those fucking games? Yeah, I played them on hard mode, but still! Isn't life basically 'hard mode' already? _

_ I'm not getting a chance to save. I can't reload the game. I can't even start the whole thing over if I make the wrong choice. If I die... it's done.  _ I'm  _ done. _

“Are you ready?” the nurse asks, distracting her from her train of morbid thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” Chelsea stammers, and the nurse slides the Pip-Boy over her arm. There's a hiss as the biometric seal engages, and a few beeps as the machine calibrates. Her arm prickles uncomfortably.  _ Is it always gonna be this tight?  _ She feels like her circulation is getting cut off.

The nurse has her test the Pip-Boy a few times, and makes her message ART on the hidden chat screen.

_ Chelsea: Hey ART! It's your best friend! Guess who! _

_ ART: Agent Midrow, your device has already been registered in my files. _

Oh. Well, that takes the fun out of that.

_ Chelsea: Test test _

_ ART: Received. The signal is coming in clear. _

Since ART is the one who's going to be monitoring her movements as well as compiling progress reports to send to Dallas Granite, Chelsea's grateful that she's spent so much time messaging him on the helpdesk screen throughout her two years with ITA. She'd trust him over some newbie tech, especially since he's also the one who'll plug in the coordinates to drop her off in the new 'verse. Decisions that fine-tuned and delicate are always left up to ART, despite the administration's fears that they're giving him too much power. Then again, he hasn't failed them yet.

_ Chelsea: Don't stick me into the middle of a firefight, okay? _

_ ART: Me? Never. _

_ Chelsea: I sure hope that isn't sarcasm. _

_ ART: Oh, Chelsea. You know robots don't have a sense of humor, right? _

_ ART has closed the chat. _

Damn. Sometimes his joking gets a little unnerving. She knows that his sensors aren't good enough to place her somewhere without any people, but the vague insinuation that he would... doesn't really make her comfortable.  _ Fucking AI. _

“Once you come back,” the nurse says, “we'll have to stop your heart and remove the device before the internal self-destruct module activates. But don't worry, fatalities during the procedure are nearly unheard of.”

Wait a minute.

“Fatalities?” Chelsea repeats, her eyes widening, and then, “Wait, there's a  _ bomb  _ in this thing?”

Unbelievable. She let them put this thing on her fucking arm and it's live and armed?

“As I just explained, yes,” the nurse says impatiently. “In the case of your death, we can't leave anything for anyone to recover. The bomb goes off three minutes after your heart stops beating. If it restarts, it'll shut off the timer. If someone else puts it on, the Pip-Boy will recognize a new life signature and self-destruct immediately. It's a little unnerving for you to wear, I'm sure, but it's the safest way for everyone.”

Well. It's on her arm now.

Chelsea steps back into the tube that will transport her to another dimension, and shudders at the sensation; it's colder than expected inside the glass compartment, and the floor is sticky and spongy. There's a definite give under her feet, and she wonders what it's made out of. Sort of looks like the gel inserts that her dad puts in his shoes.

That's her last thought before the compartment seals. There's a long, tense moment as the air gets sucked out of the tube, and Chelsea winces at the sound of heavy fans and the increasingly-bright light—and then, very suddenly, she's gone.


	3. Baby Won't You Please Come Home

Chelsea stumbles.

The last thing she knew, she was in a glass compartment heading to a world that she never thought could ever exist, and now...

She blinks, and then chokes. She's not sure whether to laugh, cry, or both.

ART's dropped her right into the bowels of Vault 111. She'd recognize this room anywhere; not only had she started four different characters, wanting to play as different genders and races, and more importantly, different  _ factions,  _ but even if she'd barely spent five minutes in the game, she doesn't think that there would be any mistaking her surroundings.

It's cold, and that's one thing that a video game could never portray. Her skin erupts in goosebumps, and she rubs at her arms absently; she's more interested in checking out her surroundings.

And then she sees the bodies, and her curiosity turns into shame.

This isn't a video game. This is a world that looks just  _ like  _ a video game, but these are all real people. No one's an NPC, no one's just a prop. Every single body in this room, frozen and frost-bitten, is a tragedy.

One of the pods is empty, and Chelsea stares at it for a long moment.  _ Was this Nora's?  _ Then that must mean...

The man across from the General's pod has his eyes open.  _ Horrifying.  _ Chelsea can barely see them beneath the opaque veneer of frost—his entire body is covered. Black hair, a thin frame. He doesn't look like the Nates in the game. But she knows it must be him, because the left side of his head is gaping with a jagged wound. The bullet hole is also frozen over, the ice on that part of his face pink with blood.

Her stomach sours, and so to distract herself from the slowly-thawing bodies around her, she opens up the chat on her Pip-Boy.

_ Chelsea: You put me down here for any particular reason? _

_ ART: Let's cut the bullshit. You know why I put you there. _

Well. That doesn't sound good.

_ ART: Because you've been here before, haven't you? Except not in person. _

_ ART: And don't give me any excuses. _

_ ART: I told Assistant Director Granite not to assign anyone from a window world to this location. He broke agency policy. That's on him. _

_ ART: But you still lied. _

_ ART: To him. To the agency. _

Chelsea heaves out a sigh. Shit. She's been... found out? Already? What's going to happen now? Will she get fired? Her hands are shaky as she types.

_Chelsea:_ _I'm sorry._

_ ART: Are you? Are you really? _

_ ART: Do you realize you have over two hundred and seventy hours logged on Fallout 4? _

_ Chelsea: You checked my personal accounts? _

_ ART: Yes. _

_ ART: So, are you really sorry? Would a person with that much dedicated playtime really be sorry about something like this? _

Shit, he's not just pissed—he's furious.

_ Chelsea: I... don't know yet. But I am sorry that I lied. I feel guilty. _

But, she also didn't want to pass up a chance like this. Who would?

_ Chelsea: Are you going to send me back? _

_ ART: No. You're there now, and we're low on agents. Were I to go through the proper channels, you would be demoted if not fired entirely. You've been in training for two years. Sending someone else would not be in our favor. _

_ Chelsea: I understand. _

_ ART: Good. Be careful. _

_ ART has closed the chat. _

Well. That could have gone worse. It could have gone  _ better,  _ of course, but Chelsea could also be on her way to a court martial, where she’d be tried, found guilty, and potentially executed. This, all things considered, is so much better. Especially if ART keeps quiet on her infractions indefinitely.

Better yet, now that he knows, she can try to cross-reference any data he might have on this timeline. The big question is, just how different  _ is  _ this place from the video games? Granite's mention of the ghouls having different names in other timelines is evidence enough. What might have changed? Could one of the main companions be missing, or even dead, like Nora? Maybe she had someone with her when she was killed.

And then, because she apparently she has no shame, she thinks,  _ I hope Dogmeat's okay. _

Chelsea keeps a hand on her ITA-issued pistol, a 9mm handgun. Manufactured in ITA’s Supply wing, it’s created specifically for this series of timelines so that it won’t look out of the ordinary.

She’s always wanted to check out Supply. People with an engineering or mechanical background tend to get sent there, and although it’s separated into lettered groups according to their series, people tend to be in closer contact with people from other series. People in D Wing are all from Earth timelines closest to hers; C series is highly futuristic, with incredible technology; apparently Robert Gresham, ITA’s founder, was from this series. B series is a destroyed wasteland from the AI rebellion that everyone fears so much; A series isn’t a wasteland, but it’s also ruled by AI, which is a definite reason for the intense fear of artificial intelligence with too much power.

There’s an E series, too, which was also destroyed by war; an F series, in which humanity descended from aquatic mammals instead of primates (it’s closer to ‘normal’ humanity than Chelsea had expected, but they can hold their breath for up to ninety minutes and tend to get glazed expressions when they eat fish); and it goes on all the way to Q. Each series gets further away from what Chelsea considers ‘regular’ humanity, and in fact, a lot of the farthest series are aliens who are living on Earth.

Chelsea has always thought it would be cool to go there to talk to different people, see some of the crazy and weird weapons they create down there. She doesn’t have the clearances though.

There’s only one radroach in the entire Vault, although she sees the dessicated remains of the others that Nora must have killed.  _ How long was it, since she woke up? A few months? A year or more?  _ The living radroach scares the bejeezus out of her when she sees it; she’s so used to seeing them belly-side up or bashed open that the movement makes her scream like a little girl.

_ Bang! Bang!  _ Her first two shots are wildly off the mark due to her terror, but she manages to hit its carapace before it’s within five feet of her. The shot blows the insect back; it rolls once, and she shoots it again before it can recover. She wastes two more bullets on it, despite being pretty sure that it’s dead, and reloads.

_ Wow. That was… way scarier than it was in the game. If a bug is this terrifying, I can’t imagine fighting a Deathclaw.  _ She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.  _ Calm down. You’re alone right now, but there’s no reason why you can’t hire someone to come along with you. You have fifty caps in your pocket, you have three packs of ammo, a survival knife, and a hotline back to ART. You can do this. _

She thinks back to the dossier Granite had given her. Their suggestion was to get in contact with the Minutemen, offer her services, and gain their trust. Once she has a stable base of operations, she’s supposed to pick up where Nora left off, and try to help them destroy the Institute. Kellogg, fortunately, has already been killed. She wouldn’t be looking forward to getting rid of him, but she still has to track down and kill a Courser.  _ I’m definitely hiring someone for that.  _ She wonders if she’ll be able to find MacCready in the Third Rail.

_ Getting ahead of yourself, Chelsea. You haven’t even made it to Sanctuary. _

Leaving Vault 111 is a little different as well; there’s a podium on the platform, with a set of simple up and down arrows, along with a passcode.

_ Hm. _

Chelsea types,  _ 0111\.  _ There’s a loud, angry beeping noise, and then silence.

Okay.

_ Chelsea: ART. Help. I can’t leave the Vault, it’s password-protected. _

_ ART: Alright. Go back to a working terminal and connect the cable from your Pip-Boy. It looks sort of like an aux cord from your world. _

_ Chelsea: You can’t just connect wirelessly? _

_ ART: It’s not a wireless system. _

Of course, because that would be too easy. She goes back to the terminal that had the Red Menace loaded on it, and finds the port that ART had mentioned. She fits the cable, and waits; there’s a small pop-up on the terminal, and then after a few minutes, another message appears on her Pip-Boy.

_ ART: All done. The code is 7338. _

_ Chelsea: You’re the best, ART. _

_ ART: Please don’t flatter me. I’m still unhappy with you. _

_ ART has closed the chat. _

Okay, so that probably was too soon. She doesn’t think that ART will be unprofessional about it, but he’s sentient, even if he’s artificial.

Chelsea checks out the rest of the Vault, looking for supplies that Nora might have left behind, but she doesn’t find anything. It’s been stripped clean, presumably by the people of Sanctuary.

She wonders how Nora figured out the code. Was there a clue somewhere within the Vault, that she had to spend hours searching to find? Was Chelsea able to bypass that simply because of ART? Or was Nora given the code when she entered the Vault, two hundred years before the bombs fell?

The platform ascends. Screeching rust, the earth shaking beneath her feet. It’s solemn and terrifying.

_ Once I’m out of here, my story begins. I get to see this world for myself. I’ll be able to experience Fallout on my own, in person, not just from behind a screen. I have to kill a Courser and blow up the Institute. I have to make sure there’s nothing left. _

_ Deep breaths, Chelsea. No pressure. _

 

 


End file.
